The fuse of the invention and those disclosed in these patents preferably, but not necessarily, comprises an all metal plug-in fuse element including a pair of laterally spaced juxtaposed, parallel terminal blade portions to be received by pressure clip terminals in a mounting panel or fuse block, current-carrying extensions at the inner end portions of the pair of terminal bladeportions and a fuse link portion of relatively small cross-sectional area extending transversely between the current-carrying extensions. The shape, placement and/or size and thickness of the fuse link determines the current rating of the fuse.
The plug-in fuse element is anchored in a housing which most advantageously is a molded body of transparent material from which the terminal blade portions project downwardly in the exemplary assumed orientation of the fuse. The fuse housing preferably has relatively closely spaced side walls bridged by narrow end walls and a narrow outer top or head wall. The all metal plug-in fuse element may be anchored in place in the housing by staking portions of the housing side walls into apertures in the terminal blade current-carrying extensions of the plug-in fuse element. Upper portions of the housing preferably overhang the rest of the housing to provide convenient, centered, gripping surfaces at the side and ends of the housing, so that any selected plug-in fuse assembly in a fuse block can be readily grasped for removal from the a fuse block, despite small clearances between adjacently mounted plug-in fuse assemblies.
Heretofore, the housings of the fuses were designed in a manner which made it difficult to reliably stack the fuses in hoppers and the like and deliver the same at the most desired high speeds to the location of the automobile fuse blocks where the fuses are machine inserted into terminal-receiving cavities in the fuse block. Depending upon circumstances, it may be desirable to stack the fuses in end-to-end, side-by-side or one above the other relationship in the hopper. The feeding speed and reliability of the insertion operation depends upon the stability of the stacked fuses within the hopper. In the fuse housings heretofore used, the side, end and top walls of the fuse housing were so shaped that when they were stacked in any of these relationships, they could wobble, so that they did not have a sufficiently fixed or stable orientation desired for very high speed feeding thereof. The present invention provides a unique fuse housing construction which provides a stable stacking of the fuses preferably in any one of three different stacking relationships described, although the broader aspects thereof envision a housing design which does so in either end-to end or side-by-side relationship.